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RIENZI,

The Last of the Roman Tribunes

by

Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart.

Then turn we to her latest Tribune's name,
From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee,
Redeemer of dark centuries of shame
The friend of Petrarch hope of Italy
Rienzi, last of Romans! While the tree
Of Freedom's wither'd trunk puts forth a leaf,
Even for thy tomb a garland let it be
The Forum's champion, and the People's chief
Her new born Numa thou!

Childe Harold, cant. iv. stanza 114.

Amidst the indulgence of enthusiasm and eloquence, Petrarch,
Italy, and Europe, were astonished by a revolution, which
realized for a moment his most splendid visions. Gibbon,
chap. 1xx.

Dedication of Rienzi.

To Alessandro Manzoni, as to the Genius of the Place,

Are Dedicated These Fruits, gathered on The Soil of Italian Fiction.

London, Dec. 1, 1835.

Dedication,

Prefixed to the First Collected Edition of the Author's Works in 1840.

My Dear Mother,

In inscribing with your beloved and honoured name this Collection of my
Works, I could wish that the fruits of my manhood were worthier of the
tender and anxious pains bestowed upon my education in youth.

Left yet young, and with no ordinary accomplishments and gifts, the sole
guardian of your sons, to them you devoted the best years of your useful
and spotless life; and any success it be their fate to attain in the
paths they have severally chosen, would have its principal sweetness
in the thought that such success was the reward of one whose hand aided
every struggle, and whose heart sympathized in every care.

From your graceful and accomplished taste, I early learned that
affection for literature which has exercised so large an influence
over the pursuits of my life; and you who were my first guide, were my
earliest critic. Do you remember the summer days, which seemed to me
so short, when you repeated to me those old ballads with which Percy
revived the decaying spirit of our national muse, or the smooth couplets
of Pope, or those gentle and polished verses with the composition of
which you had beguiled your own earlier leisure? It was those easy
lessons, far more than the harsher rudiments learned subsequently
in schools, that taught me to admire and to imitate; and in them I
recognise the germ of the flowers, however perishable they be, that I
now bind up and lay upon a shrine hallowed by a thousand memories of
unspeakable affection. Happy, while I borrowed from your taste, could I
have found it not more difficult to imitate your virtues your spirit of
active and extended benevolence, your cheerful piety, your considerate
justice, your kindly charity and all the qualities that brighten a
nature more free from the thought of self, than any it has been my lot
to meet with. Never more than at this moment did I wish that my writings
were possessed of a merit which might outlive my time, so that at least
these lines might remain a record of the excellence of the Mother, and
the gratitude of the Son.

E.L.B. London: January 6, 1840.

Preface

to

The First Edition of Rienzi.

I began this tale two years ago at Rome. On removing to Naples, I
threw it aside for "The Last Days of Pompeii," which required more
than "Rienzi" the advantage of residence within reach of the scenes
described. The fate of the Roman Tribune continued, however, to haunt
and impress me, and, some time after "Pompeii" was published, I renewed
my earlier undertaking. I regarded the completion of these volumes,
indeed, as a kind of duty; for having had occasion to read the original
authorities from which modern historians have drawn their accounts of
the life of Rienzi, I was led to believe that a very remarkable man had
been superficially judged, and a very important period crudely examined.
(See Appendix, Nos. I and II.) And this belief was sufficiently strong
to induce me at first to meditate a more serious work upon the life and
times of Rienzi. (I have adopted the termination of Rienzi instead of
Rienzo, as being more familiar to the general reader... Continue reading book >>